Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by calbear81 5415 days ago
When you click on an ad to "punish" the advertiser, you are doing one of a few things that are really counter-productive to what you're trying to do:

1) You're rewarding the advertiser by implying interest in what they have pitched, therefore encouraging them to blast you with more ads.

2) Assuming you're not using AdBlock, you've probably just added yourself to a much more targeted cookie pool of "people who are interested in Microsoft because they clicked". Enjoy the MS ads that will now follow you all over the web through one of the many behavioral retargeting networks.

3) You did nothing to hurt MS because they bought based on CPM so the impression was paid for in the first place, clicks don't hurt them.

4) You hurt the site you saw the ad on. Let's assume this site is a site you visit frequently. People click but no one buys, the ad agency compares the performance on this site vs. others with a less punishing audience, and decide that the money is better spent elsewhere thus depriving this site of much needed ad revenue.